WTF?

I am editing a short comedic video that was shot on two different days. For the past month their has been no glitches in any of the footage. Yesterday, the client wanted me to go back and change one thing and I noticed that all the video footage from the second day of shooting is totally messed up. The sound is fine, but the image is broken up into tiny squares that vibrate with bright colors. At one time I applied a smooth cam filter that I didn't end up using, and I wonder if it has anything to do with this?

Does anybody know what's going on and how I can fix it?

Thank you mucho!

> The sound is fine, but the image is broken up into tiny squares that vibrate with bright colors.

Yipes! That usually means corruption of some sort. This problem can happen at many places in the chain, though, so you need to track down where the corruption is. It could be the media files, it could be the project file, it could be render files, and it could be the drive.

First play those clips in QuickTime Player, without launching FCP. See if the problems are there. If so, then the clips are corrupt and you'll most likely have to recapture from tape. You could try copying the clips to another drive and then accessing them from there (drive corruption is possible), but this would be a Hail Mary pass.

If the clips look fine in QuickTime Player, it could be that your old project file has been corrupted. It could also be corrupted render files, so try using Render Manager to ditch all render files associated with the old project.

If that doesn't work, disconnect the clips from their source files (SHIFT-D for Make Offline, choose "Leave Files on Disk" and then reconnect them.

If that still doesn't work, start a new project file with matching settings and copy everything over.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks Derek!

Both the "sparkles" and corruption can especially happen with bad disk access. Make sure your media disks (you *are* using separate scratch disks?) are fast, clean, and aren't full or fragmented. I completely eliminated the Sparkles on one occurence with defragmentation of files using TechTool Pro.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Instantly find Next/Previous timeline Gaps with Shift/Option -G !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Hey Loren,

I am currently using two G-drives - one for back up and one containing the project files and set as the scratch disk. By "separate scratch disks" do you mean separate from the boot drive or do you mean separate from where I keep the project files?

The G-drive I operate from has 100 gbs of 300 free, which seems ample enough.

The corrupted file was having issues on my clients Lacie, but then seemed to be fine for a while (a month) after I got it into FCP on my computer. I'm wondering, though, if the corruption could have started back in my clients HD? I hope it has nothing to do with my G-drive.

Everything you mentioned is possible, unfortunately. Lacies are very, very prone to corruption, but there's also a bad batch of G-Tech drives that have issues. Try copying one of the problem files to the system drive of your computer, then power down and detach (don't leave them mounted) all your external drives. Check the clip for problems.


www.derekmok.com

I use only LaCie's (western digital inside) and I'm careful with them. They have lasted well.

I plug them into my UPS-- not directly into the wall.
I do not daisy-chain more than two drives to one bus and then only whenI have to.
I DiskWarrior them periodically after busy sessions.

After quitting FCP, I dismount them *before * shutting down-- ejecting via trash can. This allows the OS to clean up after them.
Then I unplug them and then shut them off, then I shut down the tower.

I reverse this when beginning a session: boot the machine, fire up the drives, connect, watch them mount, then load FCP.

I unplug them completely during lightning storms-- both power and FireWire.

Again: years of reliable service. Obviously I don't speak for all users.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Instantly find Next/Previous timeline Gaps with Shift/Option -G !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

i recently discovered tis problem on some footage i have been working on, i tried all of dereks steps to no avail when i realised it was the colour correction filter causing the artefacts and pixelling to appear.

I am using fcp 5.1.4, os 10.4.11 qt 7.4.1 on a 2.2.66 intel xeon with 5 gb ram.

i was using the limit effect to keep the blues and reds while slightly desaturating the rest. The footage is dv pal from two dvx-100's.

The odd thing is that the footage from the other cam has no problems at all....